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Lucien Aigner photographs and papers

 Collection
Call Number: GEN MSS 1837

Scope and Contents

The collection contains contact sheets, negatives, transparencies, slides, photographic prints, scrapbooks, writings, professional and personal papers, correspondence, printed material, cameras and other recording equipment, and audiovisual and computer media created and collected by Hungarian photojournalist Lucien Aigner.

Photographic materials document historical events in the 1930s and 1940s, such as the 1932 Geneva Conference for the Reduction and Limitation of Armaments, Stresa Conference of 1935, the 1936 Berlin Olympics, and the 1945 United Nations Conference on International Organization in San Francisco. Other subjects include Coney Island and Harlem, New York; ballet dancers practicing at the Opéra de Paris; Jardin du Luxembourg in Paris; Bastille Day in Paris; and the marriage of King Zog I of Albania. Notable figures in the collection include Louis Armstrong, Josephine Baker, Winston Churchill, Marlene Dietrich, Albert Einstein, Mahatma Gandhi, Adolf Hitler, Fiorello H. La Guardia, Stefan Lorant, Lorin Maazel, Guglielmo Marconi, Yehudi Menuhin, Benito Mussolini, Norman Rockwell, Sara Delano Roosevelt, William Saroyan, Haile Selassie, and Harry S. Truman. The collection additionally contains portraits taken at Aigner’s Great Barrington studio, his series of New York child portraits, and photographs of schools, camps, and churches.

Writings contain photo stories, drafts and materials related to published and planned books, diaries, and radio and play scripts by Aigner.

Correspondence concerns business and personal matters and includes letters from Helen Dukas, Stefan Lorant, Lorin Maazel, Norman Rockwell, and Sara Delano Roosevelt, as well as third party exchanges between Aigner’s family members and others.

Papers include inventories and descriptions of photographs and other material in the collection, created by Aigner as he cataloged his work in the 1970s to 1990s; files related to exhibitions, research, projects, and Aigner's portrait studio work in Great Barrington; business and financial records; and personal and family papers. Printed material includes books, catalogs, clippings, magazines, pamphlets, postcards, posters, and other ephemera by or relating to Aigner.

Printed material includes books, catalogs, clippings, magazines, pamphlets, postcards, posters, and other ephemera by or relating to Aigner.

Also included are objects and photographic equipment, such as Aigner's studio stamps, one Kodak Brownie box camera, two Graflex press cameras, and a Bell and Howell motion picture camera.

Audiovisual and computer media consists of reel-to-reel film, audio and videocassettes, floppy disks, and CDs and DVDs. Audiovisual material includes interviews of Aigner, recordings relating to his exhibitions, the documentary "Life with the Camera," and Aigner's film about educator and missionary Frank Laubach.

Dates

  • 1886–2011

Creator

Language of Materials

In English, Hungarian, and French.

Conditions Governing Access

Series I. Photographs is open for research. As additional series are processed they will be opened to researchers. For further information, consult Access Services.

Boxes 325-336 (audiovisual material): Restricted fragile material. Reference copies may be requested. Consult Access Services for further information.

Box 337 (computer media): Restricted fragile material. Access copies of digital files may be requested. Consult Access Services for further information.

Conditions Governing Use

The Lucien Aigner Photographs and Papers is the physical property of the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University. Literary rights, including copyright, belong to the authors or their legal heirs and assigns. For further information, consult the appropriate curator.

Immediate Source of Acquisition

Purchased from the Estate of Lucien Aigner on the Edwin J. Beinecke Book Fund, 2015.

Arrangement

Organized into seven series: I. Photographs, circa 1930s–2011. II. Writings, circa 1931–2009. III. Correspondence, 1899–1998. IV. Papers, 1886–2011. V. Printed Material, 1917–2011. VI. Objects, circa 1910s–1990s. VII. Audiovisual and Computer Media, 1946-1997, undated.

Extent

362.17 Linear Feet ((323 boxes) + 14 broadside)

Catalog Record

A record for this collection is available in Orbis, the Yale University Library catalog

Persistent URL

https://hdl.handle.net/10079/fa/beinecke.aigner

Additional Description

Abstract

The collection contains contact sheets, negatives, transparencies, slides, photographic prints, scrapbooks, writings, professional and personal papers, correspondence, printed material, cameras and other recording equipment, and audiovisual and computer media created and collected by Hungarian photojournalist Lucien Aigner.

Lucien Aigner (1901-1999)

Lucien Aigner was a Jewish-born Hungarian photojournalist most known for his photographs of notable figures such as Louis Armstrong, Winston Churchill, Albert Einstein, Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, Norman Rockwell, and Emperor Haile Selassie. Born on September 14, 1901, in Érsekújvár, Austria-Hungary (now Nové Zámky in Slovakia), Aigner briefly studied theater in Berlin, where he worked as an assistant camera operator to Stefan Lorant, a lifelong friend and influential filmmaker. He earned a degree in law from the University of Budapest in 1924 and converted from Judaism to Protestantism at some point during his education. After graduation, Aigner became a reporter and photographer for Az Est, the Hungarian newspaper group. He relocated to Paris in 1925 and operated as the Paris correspondent of the London General Press at the Stresa Conference of 1935. There, Aigner captured an image of Mussolini as he was about to sneeze; the photograph made the cover of Newsweek and established Aigner as a photojournalist. Aigner was among the early adopters of the 35mm Leica camera, which he used from 1925 to 1938. He began using a Rolleiflex camera in 1939. The same year, Aigner and his family emigrated from France to the United States to escape Nazi persecution. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, he worked as an announcer, producer, and director for Voice of America radio, while continuing to do freelance photojournalism. He also produced several documentary films. In 1953, Aigner established a portrait studio in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, which he operated until 1977. In later years of his life, Aigner focused on cataloging and indexing his large collection of negatives and exhibiting his photographs in the United States and Europe. He died in Waltham, Massachusetts in 1999.

Processing Information

Collections are processed to a variety of levels, depending on the work necessary to make them usable, their perceived research value, the availability of staff, competing priorities, and whether or not further accruals are expected. The library attempts to provide a basic level of preservation and access for all collections as they are acquired, and does more extensive processing of higher priority collections as time and resources permit.

This collection received a basic level of processing, including rehousing and minimal organization.

Information included in the Description of Papers note and Collection Contents section is drawn from information supplied with the collection and from an initial survey of the contents. Folder titles appearing in the contents list below are often based on those provided by the creator or previous custodian. Titles have not been verified against the contents of the folders in all cases. Otherwise, folder titles are supplied by staff during initial processing.

This finding aid may be updated periodically to account for new acquisitions to the collection and/or revisions in arrangement and description.

Folders in boxes 185-337 are unnumbered.

Subjects

Finding Aid & Administrative Information

Title
Guide to the Lucien Aigner Photographs and Papers
Status
Completed
Author
by Nora Soto, Emma Gronbeck, and Brooke McManus
Date
November 2022
Description rules
Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Language of description note
Finding aid written in English.

Repository Details

Part of the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library Repository

http://beinecke.library.yale.edu/
Contact:
P. O. Box 208330
New Haven CT 06520-8330 US
(203) 432-2977

Location

121 Wall Street
New Haven, CT 06511

Opening Hours

Access Information

The Beinecke Library is open to all Yale University students and faculty, and visiting researchers whose work requires use of its special collections. You will need to bring appropriate photo ID the first time you register. Beinecke is a non-circulating, closed stack library. Paging is done by library staff during business hours. You can request collection material online at least two business days in advance of your visit, using the request links in Archives at Yale. For more information, please see Planning Your Research Visit and consult the Reading Room Policies prior to visiting the library.

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